Blog Tour: (Interview + Giveaway) Fledge By J.A. Huss

I would like to welcome J.A. Huss to The Avid Reader today. Thanks for stopping by J.A. Please be sure and check out J.A.'s novel Fledge the second book in the I Am Just Junco series. Check out my interview with J.A. I also have an excerpt for you to read. Oh and be sure to enter the giveaway before you leave.

Book Title: Fledge

Author: J.A. Huss

Series: I Am Just Junco

Published: September 18th 2012

Publisher: Science Future Press

Kindle Edition:

Pages: 387

BUY NOW LINKS

Fledge

Amazon Kindle copy

BLURB

Fledge

Junco Coot can't even remember her trip off Earth; she was too busy being morphed into her new avian body. But reality hits her hard when she wakes up to find her new life is not what she expected. Not even close. Tier is on trial for disobeying his commander's kill order and only Junco seems to care.

In most places the avian coming-of-age Fledge ritual would be nothing more than mass murder, but here in the capital city of Amelia, it's called growing up. Junco has no choice; either fight to the death to prove her worth or get sent back to Earth in the hands of her enemies.

Her new military team is hostile, her body is being taken over by an illicit artificial intelligence, the avian president wants her dead, and her only friend is a ten-year old throwaway boy.

On a foreign habitat, in a foreign culture, and surrounded by people she can't trust or count on, Junco must find a way to save herself and Tier without losing her immortal soul in the process.

EXCERPT

Fledge

"You will come with us, Junco. We will have that conversation now."

I don't even open my eyes. "No, I don't think so, Lucan." I take another puff and blow rings, eyes still closed.

"Junco," Ashur growls at me. "You will come."

"Fuck off. You can try and make me come with you, if you think it's worth it. But I'm not going unless you plan on shooting and drugging me again. I'm not going anywhere with either of you as long as I have a choice." I open my eyes, shade them with my hand, and then sit up. "You both fucked up. I'm not your friend." I point my cigar at Ashur. "And I'm not your…" I stop and look at Lucan because I'm not at all sure what I am to him. "… whatever it is you thought I was."

Ashur's fingers grab me and yank me to my feet, my cigar goes flying, and I overcompensate and stumble backwards a few paces. I want to get angry, but I force it down and then bend over to pick up my cigar to wait it out.

Lucan breaks our standoff. "Ashur, please leave us now."

Ash shakes his head at Lucan. "No way. I'm not leaving."

Lucan smiles like Ash is a toddler. "You are, Ashur. Immediately. Or I will have you forcibly removed. You are evoking far more anger in her than I am, so let me handle this."

I look back and forth between the two of them and my head throbs a little as I clench my teeth in frustration.

Ashur walks back into the building and I watch until he's no longer visible through the transparent doors. I look back at Lucan, but he just stands there, staring at me. I realize after a few seconds that he's scrolling in his own data display, reading something. It's the same look he got when he was telling me about the Vegas planet pad takeover. Distant and searching.

Is that how I looked in the testimony room? I sure fucking hope not, otherwise he knows.

"I know you lied in testimony, Junco."

Shit.

"I just can't figure out how exactly. The drugs were fully accepted into your profile, your vitals screamed the textbook readout of someone under the influence, and you never acted out of character. Nonetheless, I know you lied."

I smile. "Well, good fucking luck with that one, Lucan. Maybe you avians are allowed to make shit up like that and get away with it. I wouldn't know, not my world after all. But I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know you lied, Junco," he continues, "because not twenty minutes before your testimony Tier admitted to breaking the treaty."

"Maybe his memory isn't so good, Lucan. I, on the other hand, have perfect recall."

"What did he say to you in the testimony room, Junco?"

"He said, Don't trust them."

I watch his face when he realizes I'm telling the truth.

"Pretty good advice, if you ask me. I'm gonna take it now."

I turn to walk towards the doors but he reaches out, not unkindly, and touches my shoulder. And then we are in the darkness of space and I fall forward as my mind adjusts to the nothingness below me. His hand reaches out again and steadies me. I'm steady, but he doesn't let go.

"Junco," he starts, then stops to breathe. "You've asked a few questions since we first met, but I am more surprised at the ones you don't ask."

I wait it out, not to try and gain momentum or anything, I'm just too tired to give a shit.

"Still nothing?"

I look up at him then. "No, Lucan. Nothing. I just don't care."

"What do you care about, then?"

"Well, I could tell you - but then you'd just take it away from me like I'm a child that needs to be punished."

"Do you not want honesty, Junco? Isn't that what you've always been after?"

"It's really not all that important right now, so no thanks. My interest in you, like I said, is gone."

"You'll turn down the answers? Take ignorance instead? Just to be stubborn."

"No, that's not it at all, Lucan. Sure, I'd like the truth, but getting it from you is like burning wood infested with wheat beetles. It heats your house for a while, but the poisonous fumes kill you before you're warm anyway, so what's the point."

"Who will you accept it from, then? If not me? Ashur? Isten? Braun?"

"Tier."

He laughs, a genuine hearty laugh, and it makes me flash with heat. "Ah, yes. You mean the one who instructed Ashur to plant spying devices in your bedroom? He's perfect."

I smile up at him. "You don't get it do you?" I wait for his complete attention. "It doesn't matter what Tier did before. I granted him absolution back on Earth for all of it. It doesn't matter if he spied on me himself, or if he killed Charlie, or even if he was the one who turned me into this monster. None of it matters, because he was forgiven. It's a done deal."

He stares down at me, his features hardening as the seconds tick off.

Patience and inertia are not the same thing.

He taps my shoulder and we are back in the grass at Fledge. The sky is dark around us. "Well, I guess your secret is out then, right?"

I shake out another cigar and touch it to the striker, inhaling and exhaling before answering. "It's never been a secret, Lucan. You had me pegged right at the start. From the 039 with their plasmas at my head after morph, to the little speech about how sweet talk doesn't work on you. You got it in one. But you know what I don't understand?"

He turns away, so I don't wait.

"Why you let yourself be drawn into my little act. The stars, Lucan? Please, that is so predictable."

He turns back and I expect anger at the very least, but he hands me indifference. "If you interfere with what I am doing, Junco, I will be forced to punish you."

"Like I said that first day in the hallway, Lucan - death means nothing to me. I can kill myself tonight and be one hundred percent satisfied with how things end. Or you can kill me right now and be done with all of it. Because that's the only way you'll know for sure that Tier will die at the end."

I'm slammed onto the ground before I can blink, a sharp pain throbbing up the side of my face. I spread out my arms, crucifix style, and close my eyes to block him out. "Do it," I whisper.

But the fractions pass and I know he's gone.

INTERVIEW

J.A. Huss

The Avid Reader: When or at what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?

J.A. Huss: Ever since I was a little girl I had always wanted to write a novel, but it wasn't until 2012 that I decided to make it happen.

The Avid Reader: What is the earliest age you remember reading your first book?

J.A. Huss: I don't remember not being able to read - I was reading around four, I think.

The Avid Reader: What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

J.A. Huss: Hands down it is science fiction, but I have a soft spot for paranormal romance. I have a PNR series in the works, although it won't be pretty and sweet. All my characters have to earn their keep, they might get their happily ever after in the end (because it's a romance, after all) but they gotta earn it! No freeloaders!

The Avid Reader: What is your favorite book?

J.A. Huss: My favorite book is Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan. This book is the last in a trilogy about a ruthless killer who comes back to his home planet after hundreds of years of crime and soldiering and gets sucked back into local politics as he carries out a revenge agenda.

I love this book because it's a deep character-driven novel disguised in an awesome twisty plot and filled with just about every science fiction element you can think of. This is a story about people more than anything, and lots of readers never got that about the book. I try to make my stories the same way in that they are always about the characters, not the action going on in the plot - even though there is a lot of action and a lot of twistiness in my books as well.

The Avid Reader: You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?

J.A. Huss: Richard K. Morgan. He's my current favorite author and actually his Takeshi Kovacs series was a major influence on the creation of Junco Coot, the main character in my new science fiction series, I Am Just Junco. I wanted to explore what it would be like to be a soldier who was as hard and ruthless as Kovacs, except from a young female perspective. I think we could fill up an afternoon chatting about that and stay away from the other junk.

The Avid Reader: If you could travel back in time here on earth to any place or time. Where would you go and why?

J.A. Huss: I'd travel forward about a thousand years. I'd like to see how all this stuff shakes out and what kind of scientific secrets we've uncovered in that time.

The Avid Reader: When writing a book do you find that writing comes easy for you or is it a difficult task?

J.A. Huss: I never write unless I know exactly where I'm going, so the writing part is easy. Sometimes I do struggle to come up with original ideas, but I think that is a problem for all writers.

The Avid Reader: Do you have any little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?

J.A. Huss: I have five dogs, two cats, two donkeys, a parrot, and more ducks and chickens than I can count!

The Avid Reader: What is your "to die for", favorite food/foods to eat?

J.A. Huss: Thanksgiving dinner. Yum!

The Avid Reader: Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an author?

J.A. Huss: Learn now to plot a story correctly and I promise, it will all fall into place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. A. Huss never took a creative writing class in her life. Some would say it shows. Others might cut her some slack. She did however, get educated and graduated from Colorado State University with a B.S. in Equine Science. She had grand dreams of getting a Ph.D. but while she loves science, she hated academia and settled for a M.S. in Forensic Toxicology from the University of Florida.

She went on to write science curriculum for homeschoolers and now runs a successful home business that creates and offers online science unit studies. When she's not writing science curriculum or fiction, she works as a farm inspector, traveling the Eastern Plains of Colorado in variety of environmentally friendly vehicles that never have four-wheel drive, so when she gets stuck in the mud in said vehicles, she has to beg for assistance from anyone who will help her. She is not bitter about that at all.

She's always packing heat and she is owned by two donkeys, five dogs, more chickens and ducks than she can count, and of course, the real filthy animals, her kids. The I Am Just Junco series was born after falling in love with the ugliest part of Colorado and the Rural Republic is based on the area of the state she currently resides in, minus the mutants, of course.

WEBLINKS

Website

Blog

Facebook

Goodreads

YOUTUBE TRAILERS

CLUTCH

FLEDGE

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure and check out all the other stops on the tour.

TOUR SCHEDULE

11/28 M-N's Amazing Book Reviews Review

11/28 Michelle's Paranormal Vault of Books Review

11/28 Krystal's Enchanting Reads Review

11/28 Broad-Minded Books Review

11/28 Reflections of a Bookworm Review

11/29 The Avid Reader Interview and Giveaway

11/29 Identity Discovery First Chapter & Giveaway

11/30 The Cover by Brittany Review and Giveaway

11/30 The Insane Writings of a Crazed Writer Review, Interview, and Giveaway

12/3 Simply Infatuated Interview and Giveaway

12/3 Maureen's Book Haven Review & Giveaway

12/4 My Cozie Corner Review and Giveaway

12/6 Michelle's Paranormal Vault of Books first chapter & Giveaway

12/11 DanaSquare Review

12/11 Bookworm Babblings Review

12/11 T B R Review